Let Me Eat Cake!
Especially if it’s a tower of citrus chiffon cake with buttermilk gelato, as shown here during a celebratory lunch with my soul sister Rita @ Ristorante Avanti.
Feast your eyes…..
An Eyeful of Easter
The inviting pastry display at Kelly’s includes enough eye candy to help you channel your inner 5-year-old. Or simply bring your own youngster to the Ingalls Street landmark and watch her smile.
Masterful Exhibition @ the Triton
Santa Clara’s Triton Museum of Art has much to recommend itself, and a current show of Old Masters-style work by Southern California’s Domenic Cretara is a prime example.
Painting for many decades in the extreme chiaro scuro style of Baroque maestro Caravaggio, Cretara is a supple realist who moves deftly across his richly-conceived figures like the golden light grazing across his canvases. The subjects of many of Cretara’s pieces include vernacular gatherings of people—caught in mundane acts of reading, working, engaged in quiet conversation, all seemingly waiting for some impending epiphany. He captures the unglamorous themes that fill our days, often without being observed. But Cretara is a master of observation (more…)
Tuesday Tapas @ Soif
One picture is worth a thousand words!
Soif does small plates on Tuesdays. This little number ran me $3. Serrano ham, half a soft/hard boiled egg, a thin slice of cheese, a thin crostini, and a slick of mustard.
With an Italian red! (for a few $$ more).
Bonny Doon’s Latest Pivot
Just to review: yes, Randall Grahm has decided to move his Bonny Doon Vineyards tasting room to a new location in Davenport. The old-fashioned white clapboard structure on Highway One (next door to the Roadhouse) that has been home to Davenport Gallery for the last three years, will become the new tasting headquarters for Grahm’s glittering array of varietals.
He’s thinking May might be the time of the latest transformation. And it makes sense.
The tasting room will be highly visible, unlike its current location tucked behind a bevy of other wineries. It will be free-standing and be able to announce itself unmistakably to inquiring wine seekers. And it will sit at the foot of Bonny Doon mountain, where a few years ago…..it all began.
We’ll keep you posted on specifics as they break!
Windy Oaks Winemaker Dinner @ Soif
No foodie with a pulse could fail to be seduced by the smart menu created by Soif Chef Santos Majano to accompany a roster of wines made by Windy Oaks Estate winemaker Jim Schultze. Next Wednesday, March 13 at 6pm, those devoted to great food, nuanced wine and prosperity consciousness will be treated to one of the best-looking menus I’ve seen in years.
Consider this: Windy Oaks’ splendid 2010 Estate Chardonnay wil be joined by Dungeness crab, quail egg, and lemon sabayon. The next course featured pan-roasted sea bass, brussels sprouts and Meyer lemon gelée paired with 2010 Diane’s Block Estate Pinot Noir. An entree of crispy duck, porcini gnocchi and nettle purée with glazed carrots joins a 2009 100% wild yeast Estate Pinot Noir and a 2010 Estate Cuvée Pinot Noir. A final cheese course will be served with 2009 100% Whole Cluster Estate Pinot Noir.
This should be a fantasy experience for fans of truly Burgundian-style Pinot Noirs, as well as the seasonal creativity of Soif’s kitchen. Jim and Judy Schultze will be on hand to explain the fine points of pinot noir. The cost for this remarkable line-up is $85 per person (exclusive of tax & gratuity), and I suggest you grab that cell phone right now—831.423.2020—for reservations.
Inside the Flame
A book of sensory adventure: The rituals, passions and discoveries of an engaged life.